2. Voluntary Observing Ship Scheme
Weather reports from all oceans and coastal areas:
Atmospheric pressure.
Air temperature & Humidity.
Sea Surface Temperature.
Wind Speed & Direction.
Visibility, Present & Past Weather.
Cloud Type, Height & Amount.
Sea & Swell.
A weather observation, including message preparation & transmission, takes minutes to complete.

3. Voluntary Observing Ship Scheme (cont)
Observations are usually made every 6 hrs and sent free-of-charge from ship to shore. The reports are distributed globally for use by all National Meteorological Services.
4833 VOS (December 2007, ~ 1,550 active).
226 VOS with an AWS (December 2007, ~ 180 active).
Supported by Port Meteorological Officers at major ports to service nationally-recruited & foreign-recruited VOS.

4. Real-time SHIP Messages
Map resized to 75% of original from JCOMMOPS, then 1px black border
Position: 2.47 cm (H) & 5.65 cm (V) from top left corner

5. Manual VOS Equipment Left (top to bottom)
Precision Aneroid barometer (aka Digital Aneroid)
Electronic barometer (Vaisala)
Aneroid barometer (Fuess)
Middle
Marine barograph – permanent pressure record & pressure tendency (amount & characteristic) over last three hours
Human eye – cloud, sea, swell, present & past weather and reading the instruments
Right (top to bottom)
Marine screen (housing wet and dry bulb liquid-in-glass thermometers)
Whirling (sling) psychrometer (wet and dry bulb liquid-in-glass thermometers)

6. Electronic Logbook Software
Computer software, e.g. ObsJMA (JP), SEAS (US) & TurboWin (NL), logs the observed data entered by the Observing Officer and prepares a coded message for transmission.
TurboWin (left) is in widespread use outside of JP & US, and contains extensive Quality Control & help. Photos assist in selecting the correct cloud types or estimating sea state.

7. Shipboard Automatic Weather Station
The Canadian AVOS system installed on the “Hudson”.
The touch screen on the Bridge displays the current conditions and allows for the manual input of visual parameters.

8. VOS Climate Project
VOSClim is a high quality reference subset of the VOS Scheme used for:
Climate research.
Modelling applications.
Benchmarking.
Global target = 250 ships (achieved by December 2007).